Souhan: Dr. King would have approved of the rise of women’s sports

New Year’s Eve and Day are for amateurs. People drink too much while forming resolutions that will last two weeks.

The real beginning of the new year, for those who care about equality and equity, is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a holiday that highlights realistic and admirable, if difficult to achieve, goals.

We can presume that Dr. King would have approved of the rise of women’s sports and would have admired Lynx star Napheesa Collier, the co-founder of Unrivaled, the three-on-three women’s basketball league that started play last week in Miami.

This has been an epic past year for Collier, who won Olympic gold, led the Lynx to within one shot of a WNBA title, teamed with Breanna Stewart in creating Unrivaled, and was the Minnesota Star Tribune 2024 sportsperson of the year.

Women’s sports have grown so quickly the last two years that their current challenge is maintaining pace.

It appears they have a chance to do just that, and it appears that Minnesota continues to be among the front-runners in creating and supporting women’s sports teams.

In no particular order, here are some triumphs in the realm of Minnesota and national women’s sports:

— The Minnesota Aurora remain one of the best sports stories in the country and recently hired Jen Larrick as their new head coach.

— The Minnesota Frost won the inaugural Walter Cup championship, are drawing more than 6,000 a game to Xcel Energy Center and recently, as part of the PWHL’s Takeover Tour, set a women’s hockey attendance record for the United States by drawing 14,018 to watch the Frost defeat Montreal in Denver.

— The University of Minnesota dance team won a national title Sunday night, taking home the pom championship in Orlando.

— The Gophers women’s basketball team is ranked for the first time since 2019. The Gophers are 17-2, including 5-2 in the Big Ten, and their next seven games are against teams that are either ranked in the top 10, traditional powers or border rivals. The next three weeks could determine whether the Gophers make it to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2018.

— In the women’s college hockey rankings, Minnesota is third, Minnesota Duluth is fourth and St. Cloud State is 11th.

— A Bar of Their Own opened on Franklin Avenue just south of downtown Minneapolis, giving women’s sports fans a sports bar they know will have all of the televisions tuned to women’s sports.

— The Minnesota Vixen women’s tackle football team finished second in their conference in 2024.

— The St. Thomas women’s basketball team is 10-8 while playing in Division I.

— Less than a year ago, Minnesota-born star Jessie Diggins helped bring a World Cup cross-country skiing event to Theodore Wirth Park in Minneapolis.

— Minnesota-born alpine skiing star Lindsey Vonn recently came out of retirement to resume competing internationally, creating the possibility that she could qualify for yet another Olympics.

My apologies if I missed any significant women’s sports events or trends. They’re hard to keep up with, and this list is not intended to be all-encompassing but to make a greater point:

Women’s sports are thriving. While women’s sports proponents like Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve constantly lobby for more daily coverage of women’s sports, the reality is that television networks make and break leagues — and trends.

Before playing its first game, Unrivaled signed a deal with TNT and truTV. ESPN has ramped up coverage of women’s sports, particularly women’s college basketball and the WNBA.

One other thing Reeve has always noted is that men’s sports get funding up front, even if what they’re selling seems dubious (like indoor golf and the USFL), while women’s sports have to justify every invested penny.